PREVIEW
A gun battle between the military and galamsey miners has resulted in seven deaths, intensifying Ghana’s illegal mining crisis
The deaths of seven galamsey miners in a shoot-out with army officers have deepened the crisis over Ghana’s illegal mining.
On 18 January, the army reported that the gunfight occurred after around 60 illegal gold miners broke through the security fence at the AngloGold Ashanti mines.
The shooting started when the miners, armed with guns, knives and other weapons, attempted to enter the deep decline area of the mines.
Tackling illegal mining threatens to be an early, and potentially intractable problem for President John Mahama who was reelected in December, eight years after being ousted by the New Patriotic Party’s (NPP) Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo (AC Vol 65 No 25, Mahama lacks time to turn his promised reset into reality). Both Mahama and Akufo-Addo promised to address galamsey mining.
On 20 January, the Ghana Coalition Against Galamsey urged Mahama to declare a state of emergency over the damage to the country’s rivers and water bodies caused by illegal mining.
Meanwhile, the Ghana Water Company Limited has reported an alarming increase in turbidity levels at the Sekyere Hemang Water Treatment Plant, reaching 14,000 Nephelometric Turbidity Units. This starkly contrasts with the World Health Organization’s safe threshold of 5 NTUs for water processing.
However, artisanal mining employs over a million people and contributes to 40% of gold production. Senior officials from both the NPP and Mahama’s National Democratic Congress have been implicated in these activities (AC Vol 65 No 21, The gold rush that poisons politics). Notably, Mahama did not set out specific policy plans to tackle galamsey ahead of the election.
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